Discriminatory Housing Lockouts Amid Post-Katrina Rebuilding

St. Bernard Parish was heavily damaged by flooding in the aftermath of Katrina. Thirteen percent of households lived below the federal poverty line, and every home took in water. (Photo: digitaldefection / flickr)

Rebuilding efforts in St. Bernard Parish, a small community just outside New
Orleans, have recently gotten a major boost. One nonprofit focused on rebuilding
in the area has received the endorsement of CNN, Alice Walker, the touring production
of the play The Color Purple, and even President Obama. But an alliance of Gulf
Coast and national organizations are now raising questions about the cause these
high profile names are supporting.

The dispute focuses on the responsibility of relief organizations to speak
out against injustice in the communities in which they work. Since September
of 2006, St. Bernard Parish has been aggressive in passing racially discriminatory
laws and ordinances. Although these laws have faced condemnation in Federal
court and in the media, rebuilding organizations active in the parish have so
far refused to take a public position.

Racial discrimination has a long history in St. Bernard politics. Judge Leander
Perez, a fiery leader who dominated the parish for almost 50 years, was known
nationally as a spokesman for racial segregation. The main road through the
Parish was named after Perez, and his legacy still has a hold on the political
scene there.

Lynn Dean, a member of the St. Bernard parish council told reporter Lizzy Ratner,
"They don't want the Blacks back... What they'd like to do now with
Katrina is say, we'll wipe out all of them. They're not gonna say that out in
the open, but how do you say? Actions speak louder than words. There's their
action."

The action Lynn was referencing is a "blood relative" ordinance
the council passed in 2006. The law made it illegal for Parish homeowners to
rent to anyone not directly related to the renter. In St Bernard, which was
85% white before Katrina hit, this effectively kept Blacks, many of whom were
still displaced from New Orleans and looking for nearby housing, from moving
in.

The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center sued the Parish, saying
the ordinance violated the 1968 Fair Housing Act. A judge agreed, saying it
was racially discriminatory in intent and impact.

The story doesn't end there. St. Bernard's government agreed to
a settlement, but the illegal ordinance was followed by another, blocking multi-family
construction in the Parish. Last month, U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan
found the Parish to be in contempt of court, saying, "The Parish Council's
intent...is and was racially discriminatory."

An editorial in the New Orleans Times-Picayune agreed, saying, "This
ruling strips off the camouflage and reveals St. Bernard's actions for what
they really are: an effort to keep lower-income people and African-Americans
from moving into the mostly white parish."

Relief Work Questioned

St. Bernard Parish was heavily damaged by flooding in the aftermath of Katrina.
Thirteen percent of households lived below the federal poverty line, and every
home took in water. Many organizations and volunteers have come through to volunteer
time and donate money, including United Way, Salvation Army, and the Greater
New Orleans Foundation.

An organization called the St. Bernard Project, which was founded in 2006 by
two transplants from Washington, DC, has become one of the most high profile
organizations active in the region, with millions of dollars in corporate and
individual donations and thousands of volunteers.

This has been a big couple of weeks for the St. Bernard Project. On August
29, President Obama mentioned them in his weekly address, saying, "The
St. Bernard Project has drawn together volunteers to rebuild hundreds of homes,
where people can live with dignity and security."

Recently the touring production of the Broadway show The Color Purple, produced
by Oprah Winfrey, announced that they will be raising money for the organization,
and that author Alice Walker will be personally participating in the fundraising.
Last year, CNN named co-founder Liz McCartney its Hero of the Year.

But this national acclamation has only increased criticisms of the work happening
in the Parish. Lance Hill, the executive director of the Southern Institute
for Education and Research at Tulane University, first raised his voice on the
issue in 2006, after the ordinance was passed. Hill is quick to point out that
he is not against rebuilding work in the Parish. However, he adds, "If
they chose to rebuild homes that Blacks and Jews would be barred from, at a
minimum they have a moral obligation to inform volunteers of the policies of
the Parish. To not do so is to mislead volunteers and donors and to become complicit
with racism."

Hill is also one of the signatories of an open letter, released this week,
which expresses deep concerns over rebuilding efforts in the parish. "Regrettably,
many relief and volunteer organizations chose not to respond to the ‘blood
relative' law, remaining silent on this issue," the letter states.
"With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that St. Bernard Parish officials
interpreted silence as consent, which has now emboldened this rogue government
to pursue other means to defy the Fair Housing Act."

Organizers say that the letter is intended to pressure organizations to think
about larger issues of injustice as they work in the region. "It is time
that we take a stand against housing discrimination in St. Bernard and throughout
the Gulf Coast," the letter states. "And make clear what the moral
imperatives are for all organizations that seek to rebuild the Gulf Coast as
a fair and just society." Among the signers of the letter are human rights
organizations like the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, regional
groups like Moving Forward Gulf Coast, and local initiatives like MayDay Nola,
which works on housing in New Orleans.

Zack Rosenburg, the cofounder of St. Bernard Project, is angered by the complaints
of Hill and others. "We are not an advocacy group and we're not
commenting on that," he told me, referring to the laws of the Parish.
"We're helping people get home." Rosenburg added that at least
30% of the families they have worked with have been Black, and he asked me to
"think about the Black families who are living in FEMA trailers and want
to move home, before writing this piece...try to build things up instead
of pulling things down."

Lance Hill and other advocates claim that working on relief without challenging
systemic injustices actually exacerbates the problem. They point out that the
number of houses rebuilt for Blacks in the community - perhaps two hundred
at the most, if you include all nonprofits working in the area - pales
in comparison to the thousands that have potentially been excluded by the laws
of the parish. "The main reason that these relief groups have had to disproportionately
rebuild Black rentals," explains Hill, "is because the Parish is
tearing down or blocking construction of affordable housing faster than the
relief groups can rebuild."

"This is why this issue in St. Bernard has troubled me so much,"
adds Hill. "Exclusion is at the core of the injustices of Katrina. The
deliberate efforts to prevent people from returning and the denial that these
policies and practices were in place has been the central issue. The exclusionary
ideology that was widespread in the white community in New Orleans became law
in St. Bernard."

Organizers hope that the multiple levels of pressure will ultimately challenge
elected officials in St. Bernard Parish to make the area an example of rebuilding
with justice for all. "Our silence doesn't help anybody,"
says Hill. "It destroys more than the relief groups can ever dream of
building."

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Jordan Flaherty is a journalist, an editor of Left Turn Magazine,
and a staffer with the Louisiana Justice Institute. He can be reached at
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Jordan Flaherty is a journalist, an editor of Left Turn Magazine and a staffer with the Louisiana Justice Institute. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience and audiences around the world have seen the television reports he's produced for Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, GritTV and Democracy Now. His post-Katrina reporting for ColorLines shared an award from New America Media for best Katrina-related reporting in ethnic press. Haymarket Press will release his new book, "Floodlines: Stories of Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six," in 2010. He can be reached at [email protected]